As snow flurries fell Tuesday in Baltimore, homeowners concerned about heating their homes this winter got some good news on energy prices.
The Labor Department’s Producer Price Index decreased 2.8 percent in October, the sharpest one-month decline on record.
Energy prices sank 12.8 percent in the month after falling 2.9 percent in September. It was the largest one-month decline since July 1986, when energy prices fell 14 percent.
“It’s certainly a glimmer of hope for us,” said Mary Ellen Vanni, executive director of the Fuel Fund of Maryland, a nonprofit that provides resources to Maryland families for heat and home utility needs. The group assisted 8,200 Maryland families in 2007 with donations from about 16,000 people.
“I had been concerned, because one estimate from the Energy Information Administration said oil heating would cost the average family about $2,500 this winter,” Vanni said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the coming months.”
Home heating oil prices were down 9.6 percent, and the cost of natural gas intended for home use fell by 5.9 percent.
Oil prices settled at $54.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday and have fallen 63 percent since reaching a record $147.27 in mid-July.
Heating bills have become a concern for many Americans, with 45 percent of homeowners expressing concern about their ability to pay for heat this winter, according to a recent consumer survey by home and garden retailer Plow Hearth.
“This survey is more or less a temperature check on Americans’ concerns about their capacity to keep their homes heated this winter, and the results make clear that the uncertain economy is causing significant anxiety in many U.S. homes,” Tim Hopkins, president of Plow Hearth, said in a release.
All types of energy showed big declines, with gasoline falling by a record 24.9 percent, surpassing the old mark of a 22.1 percent drop in March 1986.
The average price for a gallon of regular gas in the Baltimore region was $1.98, according to AAA.
That price is down 32 percent from a month ago and 51 percent from when area gas reached an all-time high of $4.03 a gallon in June.
acannarsa@baltimoreexaminer.com
